‘Rising From Ashes,’ Narrated by Forest Whitaker

Rising From Ashes

Team Rwanda in “Rising From Ashes,” a documentary directed by T. C. Johnstone.Credit
First Run Features

This documentary, covering six years in the development of Rwanda’s first national cycling team, is heartfelt. The scenery — described here as the Land of a Thousand Hills, ideal for the sport — is compelling. The lessons about professional cycling are detailed. And the title is earned by the attention drawn to the horrific Rwandan genocide of 1994, which haunts the athletes and has left their nation in emotional ruins. It’s an underdog story, which always has appeal.

But “Rising From Ashes” has the phantom limbs of missed opportunities. The 2006-12 range of the movie should have allowed for more character depth, but each team member is described in but a few traits, if that. They’re Hutu and Tutsi working together, but you hardly know that uplifting fact from the film. Only one athlete — the reticent Adrien Niyonshuti, a top cyclist who shoots for the Olympics — has enough camera time to project any personality.

More disappointing is the hinted story of the team’s American coach, Jonathan Boyer (known as Jock and called that in the film). Mr. Boyer is part of cycling history as the first American to compete in the Tour de France. In “Rising From Ashes,” he’s a fit, thoughtful, generous man in his 50s who’s attached to his pets. Briefly mentioned is his jail time for what he calls exceeding “boundaries” with a girl in the 1990s. He’s rising from ashes as well — a dark time, he says. But shouldn’t we know more? (He served less than a year, a reduced sentence, for lewd behavior with the minor.) The intriguing Mr. Boyer offers emotional memories of the father who abandoned him, and he makes coincidentally resonant statements about his sport’s physical trials: “Cycling is about suffering,” he says.

Yet his focus is on his team, and there’s little elaboration on the ashes from which he’s arisen. Privacy may be his choice. But along with the barely sketched Rwandans, we’re left with a film that lacks complex human dimension to fill out this likable if promotional tale of good will and achievement.